First update! I ended up doing a decent chunk, actually, so this'll be a long post.

So first impressions? I'm really enjoying it. We start with a cutscene of Dark!Cecil looking all broody in command of a Red Wings airship. Then suddenly a single flying eye creature attacks us and all my soldiers run scared, like seriously guys? I end up killing it by myself because I know how to press the X button to attack. After that, we arrive in Baron Castle and meet our King, who is so obviously evil I didn't even need to listen to the third NPC telling me "the King's acting really strange lately" to be suspicious. Still, it was a pretty nice scene as we get stripped of command and told to head to the village of Mist to deliver some mcguffin. Seems dodgy.

We meet Kain here as well. Liam O'Brien is voicing him, and while he's doing a good job, it just makes Kain sound much older than Cecil, who sounds like he's in his twenties. Aren't they meant to be of a similar age or something? Eh, it's only a minor thing. I have to say, I do like the 3D aspect of this game. I don't mind it being sprites if that were the only availability, but the sprites really add to the battles and the cutscenes are really well done here as well early on.

I mention this because we get a very good cutscene of Cecil battling his emotions while staring out at the (twin?!) moons. Rosa, who is obviously going to be Cecil's love interest, comes in and what I think is her theme tune kicks in and it is glorious. It's probably my favourite individual scene so far.

Anyway, Cecil is joined by Kain and we head off. I ended up doing some levelling up, snooped around the town of Baron, then went into the cave and fought a boss, the Mist Dragon. The gimmick was to not attack when it was in mist form, which was easy enough. We enter Mist village and what a surprise, the package we're delivering is booby-trapped. Bombs appear and basically torch the village, which is pretty horrifying. They see a young girl who is crying over the death of her mother: turns out, she was a summoner and her summoned monster was the Mist Dragon. Which is sad, but to be fair they didn't know that and it was attacking them. Cecil seems pretty beat up over it, but the young girl goes full-on rage mode and summons Titan to sunder the earth. Kain disappears out of nowhere, and Cecil is left with the girl.

Cecil heads to the desert village of Kaipo to rest the girl, when guards appear to kill her on orders of the King of Baron. Having none of that, I smite them pretty easily. This ends up convincing the girl of our sincerity, and she's called Rydia. She actually packs a huge magical punch. I grind up a bit in Kaipo.

There was this one enemy though - a sand worm - which was clearly way strong. I do end up defeating it though by careful healing and spamming blizzard, and it gives a ton of experience, which is neat. I end up getting to around level 18 with Cecil and level 14 with Rydia, who has a healthy amount of spells.

Actually the main point of the Kaipo plot is Rosa. Talking to an NPC directs us to a house where she is ill from Desert Fever. I think she travelled here to find Cecil? Why she's here is a bit unclear, but either way, we need a Sand Pearl mcguffin to cure her, which can be found in a Antlion Den. So Cecil and Rydia head through some caves - aided by an old sage called Tellah - to get some advice in Damcyan, another castle-town. I like how when Tellah levels up, his strength and stamina actually go down, which is kinda realistic. He's actually wicked strong with his spells though, so he's great to have around.

On the other end of the cave, we exit just in time to see Damcyan be bombed by the Red Wings. Huh!? We enter to find that they've been given command to some guy called Golbez, who with a name like that can't possibly be anything but a villain. Tellah finds his daughter, Anna, dying, which is pretty sad. She was eloping with a bard named Edward, who is actually the Prince of Damcyan. So this is where the 'Spoony Bard' line comes from. I always wondered.

Anyway, Edward gets out of his funk and agrees to help us find a Sand Pearl with a handily placed hovercraft. And that's where I've got to!

I really like how different characters have thoughts that pop up in the menus. That's a nice touch. Everyone seems to have a nice role in the group, and no-one seems like dead weight or useless. And the music is fantastic. I love the boss theme.